Suggest you research your hero under her married name, Ann O'Connor, wife of Frank O'Connor.

As for "avoiding discussion", I already commented and really, what more is there to say? She was in favor of abortion on demand, she was a nazi sympathizer, she was NOT a Christian and she was a hypocrite who hated Medicare right up until her heavy smoking gave her lung cancer.

But her books do matter to teepotter types and others who don't really think things through.

Libertarian Radical

Suggest you research your hero under her married name, Ann O'Connor, wife of Frank O'Connor.

As for "avoiding discussion", I already commented and really, what more is there to say? She was in favor of abortion on demand, she was a nazi sympathizer, she was NOT a Christian and she was a hypocrite who hated Medicare right up until her heavy smoking gave her lung cancer.

I understand that Rand is WAY over the head of leftist-regressive types.

{To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it."
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. } - From "Atlas Shrugged."

in 1966 Rand's Objectivist Newsletter said that not collecting from programs that one is forced to finance would be wrong. It said:
...the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money&#8212;and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.
The AlterNet smear also claimed that Rand said that the link between smoking and cancer was a hoax. She actually never said that. She said she was not convinced that the case had been made, and at the time it hadn't been fully made. She never said it was a hoax and she stopped smoking instantly when her physician showed her a dark spot on her own lung's x-ray.

According to AlterNet one Evva Joan Pryor, "who had been a social worker in New Yorker" said that "I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory." What job was that? Well, if you believe AlterNet she was "social worker" during this period. The implication being that Rand had to seek out a social worker to help her. Some smear-mongers of Rand have argued with me that she died penniless as the result of the evils of capitalism and that was why she sought out this social worker.

Pryor was NOT a social worker. She worked for the law firm of Ernst, Crane Gitlin & Winick which handled all legal matters for Rand. Nor was Rand penniless or in need. She was penniless when she arrived in America but during this period she had cash reserves of a few hundred thousand dollars and a steady income from book royalties.

Rand had sufficient resources to cover the health issues she faced. In fact, she had sufficient funds to pay for heart surgery for her brother-in-law from Russia. Rand's estate had a substantial sum of cash at the time of Rand's death indicating that Pryor's concerns that health costs could "bankrupt" Rand never took place. And, since Pryor argued that Rand should have these things in case health care bankrupted her, it is entirely possible that Rand never got a cent. We just don't know. But if she did, there is nothing to attack her over either.

Damn straight. I've been FORCED into Soc Sec and Medicare and it would be immoral NOT to take my benefits and encourage that kind of coercion... THAT --- is not welfare. The reciepients are ALL CONTRIBUTORS...

But there are stylistic differences of emphasis. The socialist-communist axis keeps promising to achieve abundance, material comfort and security for its victims, in some indeterminate future. The fascist-Nazi axis scorns material comfort and security, and keeps extolling some undefined sort of spiritual duty, service and conquest. The socialist-communist axis offers its victims an alleged social ideal. The fascist-Nazi axis offers nothing but loose talk about some unspecified form of racial or national &#8220;greatness.&#8221; The socialist-communist axis proclaims some grandiose economic plan, which keeps receding year by year. The fascist-Nazi axis merely extols leadership&#8212;leadership without purpose, program or direction&#8212;and power for power&#8217;s sake.

1) Not clear that "she needed it" since she died with a fairly large estate and plenty of royalties still streaming in..

2) Not a person on the planet who can tie Rand to the Tea Party. Although she might have said better things about them "potters" than she did about the Libertarians who hold her in deep regard. She BLASTED the newly formed Lib Party as not being "judgemental enough" about bad choices that folks made like drug use and political tolerance.

The point is not whether or not she needed it but whether or not she was a worthless hypocrite, which clearly seems to be the case.

(Excerpt)

However, it was revealed in the recent "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by Scott McConnell (founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute) that in the end Ayn was a vip-dipper as well. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).

As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help."

Gold Member

watch the mass exidous from california to texas... democrat rule to one of the successful 30 republican governed states.... or watch for an early retirement by the captains of industry, which made this country what it is... atlas shrugged

Eh...

Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year olds life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other involves orcs.

On leave

Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year olds life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other involves orcs.

Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year olds life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other is, of course, about orcs.  the internet.

Senior Member

Did Ayn Rand walk point for the masters of the universe? Or was she a ditzy windbag selling books to immature thinkers to make a living?
Here are the facts.
You decide.

On abortion
'Abortion is a moral right--which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved,' [Ayn Rand] told an audience of 1,500 people at the Ford Hall Forum, five years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973 and in Massachusetts, in which abortion was then illegal. 'An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being,' [Rand] declared.

On taking government assistanceAyn Rand completed all the proofs of personal entitlement and then accepted Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor and not under her literary name.

And so now we know a little bit more about the Holden Caulfield of the nutball element.

On leave

Did Ayn Rand walk point for the masters of the universe? Or was she a ditzy windbag selling books to immature thinkers to make a living?
Here are the facts.
You decide.

On abortion
'Abortion is a moral right--which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved,' [Ayn Rand] told an audience of 1,500 people at the Ford Hall Forum, five years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973 and in Massachusetts, in which abortion was then illegal. 'An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being,' [Rand] declared."

On taking government assistanceAyn Rand completed all the proofs of personal entitlement and then accepted Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor and not under her literary name.

And so now we know a little bit more about the Holden Caulfield of the nutball element.

On abortion
'Abortion is a moral right--which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved,' [Ayn Rand] told an audience of 1,500 people at the Ford Hall Forum, five years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973 and in Massachusetts, in which abortion was then illegal. 'An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being,' [Rand] declared."

Society can disagree. But it has to have an overriding interest. What would that be interest be?